Love Around the Corner Page 15

  Standing, he moved between her knees, hands bracing her hips to balance her. “How’s dinner?”

  She glanced at the clock on the wall behind him as she worked his T-shirt up his rib cage. “Another thirty minutes, at least.”

  “That’ll work.” He bent his head to capture her mouth with his. Amazingly, after that orgasm that shook him to his bones, he felt his cock begin to stir again. Gemma hooked one long arm around his shoulders as she slipped her other hand between their bodies, her fingers curling around his rapidly swelling cock.

  “Mmm, perfect,” she mumbled against his mouth.

  Sliding his hands underneath her ass, he lifted her until she could wrap her legs around his hips.

  Yes, he thought as he carried her through the living room toward his bedroom. Yes, you are most definitely perfect, Gemma Romano. She’d always been perfect. Now it was on him to prove himself worthy of all that perfection—if he could.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Gemma had just finished locking the security gate after closing when she spotted Brendan halfway down the block. At first she’d thought he’d come to meet her, but he was on his phone, facing the other way, and he looked mad, so she didn’t think he was here for her.

  The other night at his place, he’d mentioned having a terrible day, some deal gone bad. When they’d fucked, so hard and fast, she’d sensed his bad mood, like a black cloud hanging over him, and she’d been curious, despite herself. She hadn’t asked, though. That night had already gotten intimate enough, cooking for him, eating dinner together later, naked and wrapped in sheets. She hadn’t been about to start asking personal questions about his life and sharing feelings.

  But now here he was again, frustrated and angry about something. She hesitated, watching him fist one hand in his hair as he talked. She couldn’t hear his words, but she caught the tone—clipped and furious. He’d never so much as raised his voice to her.

  Before she’d entirely thought it through, she hefted her bag on her shoulder and walked toward him. He was half turned away from her, so he didn’t see her approach, which meant she heard the tail-end of his conversation.

  “Come on, it’s too small to be of any interest to you. You did this for one reason, and one reason only... Yeah, I see how it is. But don’t think you’ve won. This isn’t over.”

  Tearing the phone away from his ear, he pressed the screen to end the call, muttering an oath under his breath.

  “Brendan?”

  He startled and swung around to face her. “Gemma. What are you doing out here?”

  She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Just closed the bar and heading home. Something up with the sale?”

  “No, the deal on the DiPaolas’ building is done.” He blew out a frustrated breath and pointed to the building next to DiPaola’s. There used to be a Chinese takeout place in there, and before that, a hardware store, but the storefront had been unoccupied for a few months. “I was trying to buy this one, too, to double the parcel, but someone scooped me on it.”

  With their recent tumble back into bed, it had been easy to forget what had brought Brendan back to the neighborhood after all this time. Now it came crashing back into her mind like a wrecking ball, which is just what he was planning to do to her neighborhood. He’d come here with one goal—to develop the neighborhood. And dumb her, she’d been worried that he was upset.

  Gemma frowned in false sympathy. “Too bad. You’ll have to build your empire someplace else I guess.”

  He narrowed his eyes as he looked at her, and Gemma felt a twinge of guilt, which was stupid. A real estate developer, even the one who’d helped save her dog and was currently sexing her up on the regular, didn’t deserve her sympathy. Developers were rapidly devouring her beloved borough. She’d do well to remember that before she started having more warm, fuzzy ideas about how much she liked him.

  “You don’t even know what my plans for the property are.”

  “I’m sure they’re just like all the others who’ve come through here and bulldozed buildings.” She waved a hand up the street, where many older buildings had recently been leveled to make way for shoddily constructed apartment buildings that stood out like a sore thumb from their surroundings. “Nothing but slapped-together luxury rentals that nobody can afford except trust-fund kids and foreign billionaires who never even step foot in them. Nothing that contributes to this neighborhood.”

  “Give me a little credit, Gem.”

  “I haven’t seen a developer yet who improved things. You guys are just out to make a buck, and never mind what it does to the rest of the neighborhood.”

  Anger flared in his eyes, but she really didn’t care. Let him be mad at her. That was for the best, really. She might have momentarily forgotten who he was now and what he was here for, but that was a dangerous thing to do. Right now, she was kind of mad at him, too. How dare he rescue her dog and be all tender and sweet after sex and be the same kind Brendan she remembered, when the whole time he was planning to bulldoze her neighborhood? How could such an otherwise good guy make such a nakedly greedy choice?

  “So you think that’s all anybody’s capable of...rampant greed and destruction?”

  “That’s all I’ve seen. Not one of those new buildings has done a damned thing for Carroll Gardens except drive up rents and drive out working-class families like mine. But those developers sure cleaned up.”

  He stared at her, his jaw twitching as he ground his teeth, and Gemma forced herself to stand her ground. His money didn’t intimidate her.

  “Do you have a minute?”

  “What? Now?” He really wanted her to come home with him and have sex?

  “Yeah, now. I want to show you something. Just come take a ride with me.”

  Oh. Not his place for sex. “Where to?”

  “I promise we won’t leave Brooklyn. Come on, you might think I’m a soulless capitalist, but I know you don’t think I’m an ax murderer.”

  Curiosity finally won out. “Okay.”

  “My car’s around the corner.” He motioned for her to walk beside him, and after a moment’s hesitation, she did. Maybe this was yet another stupid move where Brendan was concerned, but she seemed incapable of avoiding them at this point.

  * * *

  The adrenaline was still coursing through his veins as Brendan walked Gemma to his car. He was not in the right place for this conversation tonight, not after that infuriating phone call. But he also wasn’t in the mood to stand there and take it as she accused him of being some heartless carpetbagger. There was still so much she didn’t know, and if they were ever going to move beyond meaningless sex, they needed to address their past.

  When they reached his car, he leaned down to unlock it. Gemma lowered herself into the passenger seat and he shut the door behind her. Well, here went nothing.

  “So where are we going?” she asked after the first few minutes of the ride had passed in silence.

  “Bensonhurst.”

  “Wow, Bensonhurst at midnight. You really know how to show a girl a good time, Flaherty.”

  He smiled tiredly. “Laugh it up, Romano, but I’m about to share my life’s work with you. Show a little respect.”

  She laughed, too, and his lingering anger from their argument in front of DiPaola’s dissipated. Brendan felt the tension slowly leaving his shoulders as he drove through the dark Brooklyn streets. Under different circumstances, in that other life he’d had to leave behind, he could imagine them driving home together like this. Maybe with a couple of kids asleep in the back seat...

  Well. Life had had other plans for both of them.

  He turned onto Eighteenth Avenue and pulled up to the curb across the street from his building. “We’re here.”

  Gemma peered through the windshield. “Where?”

  “Hop out. I’ll show you.”

  When they were
standing side by side on the sidewalk, he nodded to his building across the street. “That’s it.”

  “What is?”

  “The first project of my new company.”

  * * *

  Gemma looked at the brick building with new eyes. “You built that?”

  “Well, I arranged for it to be built. Bought the lots, hired the architects, had it constructed. They’re finishing up the interiors now. Hopefully we’ll have people in there in the next couple of months.”

  It was a fairly simple four-story red-brick building, with storefronts on the street level and apartments above. It was a little bigger than the buildings on the rest of the block—most of those were two- and three-story, but it wasn’t an eyesore. She had to admit, the tasteful brickwork was actually an improvement over the vinyl siding sported by most of the other buildings on the block.

  There were thoughtful touches, too, like the large, multi-pane windows that gave the place a faintly old-fashioned look, and the carved stone entryway, nestled between the two storefronts. French doors and black wrought iron railings on the balconies made the building almost look European. She could imagine that, with warm light pouring out of the windows, and potted plants and cafe tables on the balconies, the building would look very inviting. Someplace you’d like to live.

  “Okay, it’s not a total architectural atrocity,” she conceded. “It’s pretty.”

  “It’s meant to be more than that. Look at the apartments above these other storefronts. One unit, with two tiny windows up front and two in back that look out on the building behind it. Those apartments are dark, dank floor-throughs, with tiny, outdated kitchens and baths. I wanted to build something different, something better. Big windows that let in plenty of light, good layouts that let you live in a little peace and comfort, and every unit has a balcony, so every family gets some outdoor space of their own.”

  “Assuming there are families that can afford these.”

  “See, that’s part of what I’m doing. I kept construction costs as low as possible. Screw granite countertops and Sub-Zero kitchen appliances. I wanted to build apartments real families can afford. There are plenty of places with all kinds of high-tech amenities and every luxury bell and whistle. Your average middle-class family doesn’t care about an on-site gym and concierge service. They just want a couple of decent-size bedrooms for the kids and a kitchen you can cook a meal in.

  “Gemma, I know you’re mad that places that have been here a long time are getting torn down, but that’s going to happen no matter what. If Brooklyn is changing, if the old has to go, then I want to have a hand in what’s new. Yes, families have lived in some of these places for a hundred years. I want to build the homes families live in for the next hundred years. That’s what I’m doing here. That’s why I came back to Brooklyn.”

  Gemma blinked at him, feeling suddenly off kilter. Whatever she thought he’d brought her here to see, it was not this.

  “Wow,” she finally said, looking at her feet, which seemed safer. “You sound like George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life.”

  He shoved his hands into his pockets, shoulders hunched forward. “Maybe. George Bailey had the right idea.”

  “Um, Brendan, George Bailey never made any money. You caught that part, right?”

  “No, he didn’t. And I’m not going to make a lot on these either.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s kind of a long story. There’s a little park on the next block. Are you up for a walk?”

  “Sure.”

  Then he held his hand out to her, watching her steadily, almost a challenge. Brendan Flaherty was still largely a mystery to her. But right now, he was a mystery she desperately wanted to unravel. So she took his hand.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The park in the next block was indeed very tiny. Just a strip of blacktop with some benches on one end and a cluster of worn-out playground equipment on the other. If this was the only public outdoor space around here, then Brendan’s apartments, with their little balconies and big windows, seemed even more appealing.

  Brendan led her to one of the park benches. The streetlight was halfway down the block, so it was dark where they sat, the scraggly tree overhead casting a pattern of dancing shadows on the ground in front of them.

  “So tell me why you’ve embarked on this fool’s errand.”

  “First,” he said, “I should point out that I can afford to. These places aren’t going to turn a huge profit, but they’ll pay for themselves, with a little extra, and I’ve got enough money personally to front the expenses.”

  “Right,” she said, gripping the park bench on either side of her thighs. “Because you’ve been raking it in all these years.”

  “I have,” he acknowledged. “But it came at a cost.”

  “What kind of cost?”

  Brendan inhaled deeply, and a tremor of unease raced down her spine. He was about to tell her something serious, something important. She had the feeling it was the key to unwrapping who he’d become during the fourteen years he’d been gone, and maybe why he’d left. “First I have to tell you about my uncle. Do you remember him?”

  “Jimmy Walsh.” How could she forget the glitzy, polished businessman who showed up in Brooklyn throwing his money around, and then left town with her boyfriend in tow?

  “He’s in real estate development, but on a much larger scale than what I’m doing here. Not these six- and eight-unit buildings you’re getting in Carroll Gardens. The last project I worked on with him was thirty-one floors, forty-seven units. The cheapest one sold for two point five million.”

  “Jesus...” The thought of that kind of money left her weak kneed.

  Brendan smiled ruefully. “That’s what we did. We put together those deals. Found the properties, made the purchases, put together the funding, and brought in the architects.”

  Listening to him talk about that life was like listening to a stranger. It was hard to believe that the Brendan she’d loved in high school had willingly chosen that kind of life, money or not. “And you made a lot of money.”

  He turned his head to look at her fully, still smiling. “I made a stupid amount of money. Seriously, it’s obscene.”

  “You can quit bragging anytime, you know.”

  “Sorry, couldn’t help it. It’s all just an explanation, anyway.”

  “It’s not explaining why you walked away from all that to build middle-class apartments in Bensonhurst.”

  * * *

  “I owe that to Mrs. Lopez,” Brendan said, speaking her name out loud for the first time in six months.

  “Who is she?”

  He took a deep breath, preparing to fill Gemma in on his fourteen years of morally dubious success.

  “My last project with Walsh Construction was called the Triangle Tower. Jimmy had been working on the deal for years, buying up lots on the edge of Old Town. That’s in the north part of Chicago. Back in the day, Old Town was full of hippies, but now it’s gentrified like you wouldn’t believe. Anyway, the Triangle was set to be a big payout for us.

  “When I first came into the business, Jimmy had me doing a little of everything, but the part I liked best was the concept and design stuff. I liked coming up with a vision, talking to the architects, all that. Jimmy hated talking to architects, so he was happy to put me there and eventually, I took it over.”

  He paused, because this was his chance to explain it all to her, but he didn’t want to sugarcoat his own motivations and actions.

  “Maybe I hadn’t planned that for my life, but once I got into it, I liked it. It felt creative, like I was really building something. I liked figuring out what the buyers were looking for, planning the amenities we could offer, imagining what the building would look like. I glad-handed investors, loan officers at the banks, potential buyers. I sold them all on the lifestyle as much
as the real estate. I got really good at it.”

  Gemma said nothing, frowning down at her feet in clear disapproval. He didn’t blame her. After all the plans they’d made together, she was probably furious, listening to the life he was describing.

  “The land deals, getting the plans approved by the city, the permits, that was all Jimmy’s deal. He had an army of lawyers and paper pushers, and his team worked like a well-oiled machine. When we hit a snag on the Triangle, he flipped out.”

  “What kind of snag?”

  “A holdout. Jimmy would scope out a parcel he wanted to develop and send his team in there to purchase properties he needed to put the deal together. If anybody said they didn’t want to sell, Jimmy would sail in with a fat offer.” Brendan shook his head, half in wonder, half in disgust. “I never saw anyone tell him no.”

  “Just like the DiPaolas didn’t tell you no.”

  The two were not the same. The DiPaolas had welcomed his offer, and he wasn’t going to feel guilty for being the one to make it. “Hey, they wanted out. I just walked in with the right offer at the right time.”

  She ducked her head and nodded reluctantly. “No, I know. I get it. But losing them hurts.”

  He touched her arm. “I’m sorry, Gem. I know how hard it is for you.”

  She shook her head briskly, sitting up until his hand fell away. “It’s business. I know that. So tell me the rest of the story about your tower.”

  “The holdout was the corner lot, the last parcel we needed to lock down the entire block. The woman who lived there was in her eighties. Mrs. Lopez. Her grandfather built the house.” When he closed his eyes and thought back to that big, ramshackle house on the corner, he could almost see that woman’s tired, lined face as she glared at him from her front porch. “Anyway, she wouldn’t budge. She was going to die in that house, and then pass it on to her kids and her grandkids, like it had been passed on to her. When someone’s committed like that, it’s not about money. Nothing Jimmy could have offered her was going to change her mind. So I started drawing up new plans with the architects. We’d move the main entrance to the opposite side, make the backside, abutting her property, the service entrance.”